“With brave people like you sounding the alarm, hopefully by the time my children are parents, it will change. It must change”
My jaw dropped when I read Chava Berger’s article on how she decided to stop working. You see, I’d decided to quit my job on Thursday, which was not an easy decision financially or emotionally. I literally gave my boss notice on Friday morning. When I sat down to read the Family First on Friday night, I was completely drained.
I flipped to Chava’s article and I was shocked. It felt like a hug from Hashem that I made the right decision. So Chava, you aren’t the only person who’s free to spend time with family now. Feel free to give me a buzz whenever things get to be too much!
H.W., Clifton, NJ
I wanted to applaud the letter writer who asked why the story on addiction didn’t indicate that there were issues causing the writer’s addiction, and not that the addiction is the problem on its own (although I think the story did allude to issues that might have triggered the addiction.)
This is a common misunderstanding with addiction and any addicting mental or emotional issue, which is also, interestingly, usually the solution and not the problem. What do I mean? As someone who has suffered from pure OCD, anxiety, and depression, I finally came to realize that the issues in my life triggered these patterns, because this was my brain’s way of protecting me from my emotions, which alcohol and drugs do for their users as well. I realized my obsessive, repetitive thoughts served a similar purpose to alcohol. As soon as I learned to safely connect to my feelings and validate myself, the pattern would be interrupted. Bigger issues would cause more intense responses, while smaller ones would cause ruminating.
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